


Equinox

by bluehawthorn



Series: Axis [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternative Ending: The Last Jedi, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Except Hux, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren Redemption, POV Ben Solo, POV Kylo Ren, Porn with a little bit of Plot, Reylo - Freeform, Shower Sex, Sleepy Sex, Spooning, Supreme Leader Ren, The Force Ships It, Two kinds of smut!, Wall Sex, Well more accurately hotspring sex, bed sharing, sexual healing, space porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 12:09:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13457967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehawthorn/pseuds/bluehawthorn
Summary: Kylo Ren is now Supreme Leader of the First Order. Ben Solo on the other hand, is working to sabotage it from the inside. Meanwhile, the Force continues to connect him with Rey.(Part 2 of a series - probably best if you read Bright Enough to Rival Stars first. Third installment coming soon!)





	Equinox

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so first, I accidentally posted a half finished draft of this a few days ago and then deleted it several hours later. If you read it then, I apologize. Please do take a look again if you're here anyways. It now comes with a lot more of Ben's redemption process and a bonus shower/hotspring sex scene!
> 
> Secondly, sorry about how vague the teeny-tiny bit of plot I included here is. To be honest, plot is not my strong point and I am mostly just here to write porn. Angsty, feels-ridden, kind of over-dramatic space smut to be exact. So...I hope you enjoy!

Finally, after days of waiting, there she is in front of him. He stops so suddenly that he almost stumbles. 

He's alone - thankfully - but in a well-used hallway. He can't sense anyone nearby to interrupt them, but still, he opens a door and slips into an empty interrogation room, hoping as he does so that she still can't see his surroundings through their bond. There are some memories he doesn't want to reawaken for her.

It is such a relief to see her that it takes him a beat to recognize that she does not look pleased to see him in return. When he does, anxiety ripples through him. 

"Ben, what have you done?"

The disappointment in her voice is like a physical blow and all the old feelings of failure hit him like a riptide, muddy and suffocating. His head reels. It is worse hearing this tone from her than it once was from Snoke. 

He struggles to regain composure. "I told them that you killed Snoke and I declared myself Supreme Leader," he explains quietly. He is filled with a hot sense of shame he doesn't think he deserves. He has done what he thought was right. Not only that - what he thought she would want him to do.

"I know!" She says sharply. He flinches, just a little, before he can stop himself. He's forgotten how much she effects him. 

He's not sure what he thought would happen when they were reunited after their night together, the night he killed Snoke and they found each other...but this wasn't it. Thinking about that night - of her body against his, under and around him, of her crying his name - makes his breath begin to quicken and his cock harden despite all he's feeling. He clenches and unclenches his fists, trying to return himself to the present.

"We've heard. How could you do that? After everything?" 

There is real pain in her voice. He hears it now. She feels betrayed, he realizes. _How could she not know? How could she still not trust him after all that happened? How could she...._

____

__

He takes a deep breath. Of course it will be difficult for her to trust him. This is to be expected. 

His voice when he answers is as calm as he can make it. "I couldn't just turn myself into the Resistance. I'm working against the First Order. From the inside. That way, if I do turn myself in your people will have reason to be lenient with me, and you and I..." He trails off. 

He hadn't meant to say so much. She has a tongue-loosening effect on him - _in more ways than one _, he thinks wryly - that somehow he is never prepared for.__

____

__

She hesitates but is still looking at him with distrust, her eyes narrowed. "How can I know that what you say is true?"

He tries to keep his face neutral as emotion rages inside him. Luckily he has had a lot of practice at this particular skill. Not that he is always successful. "Have we attacked the Resistance lately?"

"Well no."

"That is because, although it nearly cost me a mutiny, I argued that what was left of the Resistance was not an immediate threat and managed to redirect the attention of my Generals to an uprising in a nearby system." 

What he doesn't say is that he also worked to minimize the violence with which that uprising was put down, and Hux was so brazenly vocal about his suspicions about all of it that he'd had to kill him. He'd done it publicly, snapping his neck with the Force, to discourage others from voicing similar concerns. She would know that Hux was no loss to the galaxy, but he's unsure whether she would disapprove of him killing to solidify his position and doesn't want to take the risk of telling her.

He clears his voice, tries to don the stoic mask he uses for official matters. Tries not to think about how close she is, how if the bond holds true he should be able to cross the space between them and touch her. To feel her, just as he did when they pressed their fingertips together and saw one another's futures. 

Her vision seems to be coming true now. He takes a moment to wonder if his will too. He hopes not. Although perhaps it already did when she stood with him against Snoke's guards, when she merged her Light with his Dark.

He gathers himself mentally. There are things they should talk about. "It is good that this has happened now...that the Force is reconnecting us. I can't hold them off much longer. They want to attack while you're still on Crait."

Something close to panic crosses her face and it makes him want to go to her even more badly, to enfold her against his chest. "You can't Ben. You'll destroy us. We're stuck here with only the supplies I can bring in. We're barely hanging on, waiting for...." 

She stops, not wanting to reveal too much and he understands but it bothers him nonetheless. And he knows anyways - that his mother would have called on her allies, that since the First Order destroyed the Republic many of those allies would stay silent.

"Why don't you just put everyone on the Falcon and leave?" he asks.

"We don't have anywhere safer to go right now, and..."

He finishes the sentence for her: "...we would just track you anyways." 

"Yes. And at least the base on Crait has defenses." 

"They're not defenses that would stand against us." He considers for a moment before continuing. "But I've been thinking about all of this for a while now, and I believe I have a plan." 

She leans toward him just a little, curious. He explains it to her. She listens raptly, nodding, a smile growing as he lays it all out before her. "Yes! That could work!" she says, with that bright tone that comes into her voice when she's excited. 

"Can you make contact? So that you can explain all this to General Organa?" She stammers a bit on this last part, perhaps remembering too late what her General means to him.

"Rey, I'm not ready for that yet and I doubt she is either." 

She nods her head in understanding. "Can I tell her then?"

"Yes. Of course. You'll have to for it to work. But only her and her closest advisors. The fewer people who know what I'm doing the better."

She nods and he continues. "She won't believe you at first..won't believe me. I can send proof. Will you wait to tell her until I've done that?"

"Of course I'll wait," she says. 

He lets himself smile, just a little. He knows she will like this next part. "I'm also spreading word among the Stormtroopers, about FN-218...about Finn. Creating openings for them to escape. It's driving Hux and Phasma mad." _Or it was driving Hux mad before The Supreme Leader made an example of him. _"Some of them may try to join the Resistance."__

____

____

Her face shines with the open delight he envies and admires her for, and most of the wariness left there melts away. Something thaws inside him as well at the sight of it. 

He doesn't understand how he's come to feel this way about her so quickly. After all he's done, all the ways he's been twisted over the years by Snoke, he had thought these parts of himself dead. But here he is, yearning to go to her, to lift her into his arms and kiss her until they're both gasping for air and - 

His self control is gone and his face flushes at hearing the desperation in his own voice, but he can't stop it. "Rey I need you to trust me. Please. I promise that I am...I'm trying."

"It's going to be a long time before I can trust you Ben. But I believe you. I believe you're trying."

"Thank you," he says, and he means it.

He takes a small step toward her, slowly, his hands held in front of him in a gesture of harmlessness, as though she might bolt like a wild animal. He can tell that part of her wants to. "Are you somewhere private?" 

She nods, swallowing. His eyes linger on her throat for a moment before returning to her face.

"Rey," he hears himself saying, his voice laced with that pleading again. "I can't stop thinking about you."

She swallows again, silent so long he almost thinks she doesn't feel the same, but then she says quietly, "I think about you too."

It makes him braver, to hear this. "I don't know how long we have." She just stands there, searching his face as though trying to discern his intentions. So close, but not close enough. 

He summons even more of his courage. "Can I touch you? Please?" 

He is forever saying please to her. He knows it is weakness but doesn't care anymore. There is nothing he wants to take from her. He only wants what she'll freely give him.

She hesitates but then nods, stepping just the tiniest bit closer. He crosses the rest of the space between them, reaching down and taking her small hands in his larger gloved ones. 

"Wait," he says, dropping them so that he can strip away his gloves. Their skin meets the next time he reaches for her. It makes him feel...he's not sure what. It makes him feel a lot of things at once.

She gazes up at him. Her eyes are filled with light. She glows with goodness and his chest aches with it. He knows he isn't worthy of her and yet he's not unselfish enough to turn away. 

He bends toward her and she tips her head up, standing on her toes. The kiss is soft at first, both of them holding back. But then her teeth graze his bottom lip and his hands are on her face and hers are fisted in his robes and her lips are opening under his and the whole galaxy pivots on the axis of this moment as he explores the delicate terrain of her mouth with his own.

Eventually he pulls back and tries to memorize her face. Her eyes are twinkling now and she looks more relaxed. She smiles up at him and he finds himself smiling back, in wonder and disbelief. _How did we end up here? ___

____

____

And then, as quickly as it came, the connection is lost.

*****

 

The next time the Force connects them, it is two days before the First Order attack on Crait is planned. He has delayed it as long as he can.

It is late evening and he is doing his lightsaber forms in the hopes of tiring himself enough to find sleep. One moment he is alone and the next she appears against the wall of his training room. 

Naked. 

Showering from the looks of it, water streaming down her smooth, toned body. Her pale skin glows as bright as a moon in the dark room.

Actually no, she is not in a shower. The way the water flows is wrong for that. It looks as though she is under a natural source of water. Perhaps some fall of the hot springs within the mineral caves of Crait.

The sight of her, her beauty, stuns him. He feels a wave of guilt, catching her in this private moment, but he can no more look away than he can choose when the Force brings them together.

She startles when she sees him, and her arms fly up in an attempt to cover her body. He shrugs apologetically and begins to turn away.

As he does, he sees her hesitate. She drops her arms and reaches one of them tentatively towards him. Her eyes are full of uncertainty for only a moment before it shifts to resolve. 

And something else. _Want. _Desire rushes through him like lightning in response.__

____

____

He is already shirtless, and it is a simple thing to strip out of his pants and boots as he walks toward her, leaving them strewn on the floor.

He feels the water first, warm and silky with minerals. And then he is slipping his hands into the dip of her back and leaning down to kiss her. He tastes the water on her lips, tangy and metallic, and under it the unmistakable taste of her, like the stubborn sweetness of green growing things that persist under the harshest conditions.

As he's done once before, he reaches down and lifts her. Her arms stretch up to go around his shoulders while her legs wrap around his waist. 

Inches apart now, they look at each other. The unspoken thing that passes between them whenever their eyes meet lingers in her gaze as she reaches down between them and wraps her hand around him. 

His eyes shut for a moment as the feeling of it takes him, but he opens them again so that he can watch her face as she brings him into alignment with her and then impales herself on his length. Her lips part and her head falls back and he knows that these moments with her...when he affects her like this...are better than any triumph or power he's ever carved out as Kylo Ren.

He holds her up with one of his arms while his other hand settles around the back of her neck, beneath her hair. He can feel the stretch and pull of her muscles ease around him as he sinks into the tight warmth of her one excruciating inch at a time. He groans, his grip on her tightening. 

At first he lets her set the pace, simply supporting her to rise against him and then pulling her down onto him with the hand that cups the back of her neck. But soon she feels so good that he can't hold back. He begins to fuck her, faster and harder. He is mindless and consumed by her. Her hands clutch at his shoulders as he pushes her against the wall of the training room. 

He's not being gentle, but just like last time she doesn't seem to want him to be. She is moving with him, matching him thrust after thrust. 

There is still water cascading over them. Her skin glistens with it and her hair is heavy and dark.

Her fingernails are pressed into his skin, fingers scoring across his back. Then they are in his hair, using it to pull his head down into a hard hungry kiss. The small pain of it stokes his arousal hotter.

Without thinking he leans down further and puts his teeth on the curve between her shoulder and neck and she gasps, arching toward him. He holds her there, pinned to the wall. He bites her harder, licking at the small dents his teeth make, at the same time plunging into her again and again.

He feels the moment she whimpers with the beginning of her orgasm. He releases her throat and kisses her, his tongue claiming her mouth, fucking her even harder as it starts to sweep through her. He feels her legs trembling around him, feels the way her pussy clenches around him.

He slams into her, his hips grinding into hers, crushing her body between his and the wall. She cries out, tensing as she is wracked by her climax. 

He fucks her through it, watching her, feeling possessive and pleasure drunk. _He _did this. He can bring her to this place he doubts she's ever been before.__

____

____

Finding his own finish is almost secondary to the heady satisfaction he feels when she finds hers. He goes slower now, knowing she'll be sensitive, burying himself in her as her body collapses against him.

A few more thrusts and she begins to respond again. There is surprise on her face that matches his own. They find a rhythm again together and soon his vision blackens around the edges and he is hurtling into a punishing, annihilating tunnel of sensation. 

He can feel that she is coming again too and they grasp one another so tight they're both likely to leave the other with bruises. It feels right that they should mark each other this way, leave evidence of this rushing torrent of pleasure that is flaying away all his pain and loneliness and leaving him raw and unrecognizable.

When it is over they stay propped against the wall, leaning into one another, both panting. The water is plastering his hair to his face and she reaches up to brush it out of his eyes. She looks at him in that intense way she has. It makes him feel like she can see into his soul. 

Perhaps she can. _What a devastated, charred landscape she must see there _, he thinks.__

____

____

But she looks at him long enough that he begins to believe she sees something else, something once wrecked but also, possibly, salvageable...something that could be repurposed. He sees an image in his mind of one of the old ships she used to scavenge in but on a more forgiving, forested planet like the one in his hologram, the bones of it being reclaimed by vines and wildflowers, small creatures nesting in the crevices.

He doesn't feel her in his mind, but he wonders if somehow she put it there. Either way, it gives him comfort.

He lowers her to the ground and as her feet touch the floor she looks at him one more time, her face darkened by the gravity of their situation even as it is flushed with release.

And then, in an eyeblink, she is gone. They'd never said a word.

 

***** 

 

The plan works. The First Order takes significant losses on Crait, and the Resistance very few. 

They escape, and with him secretly sabotaging things the First Order loses its ability to track them through lightspeed. He also teaches Rey how to unmark the Falcon so that it can no longer be traced. He makes a point of seeming very angry about these last points, destroying several important pieces of First Order equipment in the pursuant fit of temper he fakes for dramatic effect.

That night he is lying in bed, awake, knowing that sleep is unlikely to find him. He runs over the day's events in his mind, considers and reconsiders his plans from here. One of his arms is flung over his eyes; he feels her weight on the bed before he sees her.

He scrambles up onto his knees, muscles tensing, his instincts flooding his body with adrenaline. But it is her, and his heart begins to pound for an altogether different reason.

She is curled up on her side and stirs sleepily, murmuring, "Ben?" Her eyes barely open and when she sees him, they flutter shut again.

"Yes, it's me."

Without noticing when, he has started to enjoy hearing her use his old name. It surprises him. He once prized the sound of command in the new name he'd made for himself and hated the weakness he felt was held in his old one. Everything is changing.

He lays back down on his side, mimicking her position, facing her in the semi-dark. It entrances him, how vulnerable she looks, half asleep in his bed. It worries him too though. He's never really seen her off her guard, except maybe in the throes of her pleasure. 

"Are you alright?"

"Yes," she mumbles. "I'm just...really tired."

"Did something happen today?"

"Just what we planned. But it...it drained me." She is silent and still for a few moments before she continues. "Is it possible to use too much of the Force?"

"In a way," he explains. "When you start testing your powers mostly, as you are. If you're trying to do something yourself instead of letting the Force do it through you, it can exhaust your own energy. It's temporary. You'll feel better in a day or so."

This is his fault. His plan had involved Rey using her powers...quite a lot. With all her raw strength, he occasionally forgets how little anyone has taught her about all of this.

"I'm sorry."

Her eyes crack open and she looks at him, bleary-eyed and confused. "Why are you sorry?"

"I should have prepared you better. I forget sometimes, how little training you've had."

They are curved toward each other; _like two halves of a whole, _he thinks. He is wearing light black sleeping pants; his chest and arms are bare. She is in a thin cream-coloured shift that leaves her legs and arms exposed and little to his imagination. His desire for her is beginning to simmer, despite this guilt he's now feeling.__

____

____

She reaches out with an arm, and her hand comes to rest against his sternum. Her eyes close again, her lashes resting on her pale cheek. "It's alright Ben. It worked. Your plan. It was brilliant."

In truth it was rather simple and only worked because _she _was brilliant, but he'll take any praise she gives him. They are both quiet for a while. Her breathing slows but he doesn't think she's asleep.__

____

____

Although it's a bit more than he can bear, having her in his bed with so little contact, it's also pleasing in a way...getting to lie there and watch her at his leisure, studying her face, the curve of her neck, the rise and fall of her breasts and ribs as she breathes. 

They spend a long time like this, their bodies twin crescent moons on his bed. He spreads his hand over hers, pulling it flush against him when it begins to go limp and fall away from him. He wants this touch, at least, to remain.

"Mmmm," she murmurs in response, "It's so real. You feel nice. Warm."

He chuckles quietly. He does tend to run hot. 

And she too feels real through the bond, the energy of her hand electric against his skin. A mix of tenderness and longing blooms through him, but he doesn't say anything. He drums up his self control, making an exercise of it, and just continues to watch her. 

He braces himself for the connection to end, but it doesn't. Not knowing when she'll be gone again makes this time seem precious and as the time passes it brings him into a sort of calm presence he rarely experiences. There is nowhere else he wants to be, and he doesn't want to miss anything.

Eventually she stirs again. She opens her eyes, blinking away sleep and shifting the slightest bit toward him, her fingers flexing beneath his. "Ben?" She asks.

"Yes?" He replies.

"Will you...hold me?"

Something like joy wells up inside him. It isn't a feeling he's all that well acquainted with, but he welcomes it. It hurts, the brightness of it like a blade catching the light, but he embraces this too. 

"Of course", he replies, his voice suddenly gone hoarse. He reaches out and gathers her small body against his. 

The lightness of her belies her strength. Even without the Force she is formidable, fierce and graceful. She fights with a speed and intelligence he knows was hard won through surviving on her own in the harsh deserts and cutthroat outposts of Jakku.

He feels a flash of anger at her parents, who abandoned her to that life. Dead now, and good riddance. She deserved better.

He's brought back to the present when she shifts her back to him, fitting her body into the slope of his. He tightens his arms around her, the feel of her flush against him making him ache with wanting her. He takes a breath and tries to relax, not to want more, to enjoy just this.

And he finds, remarkably, that it is easy to enjoy. It is different than the desperation of last time. He doesn't want to rush and all his usual rage and restlessness feels far away. He kisses the top of her head and can smell the faint fragrance of her, sweet and floral. 

It seems an incredible honour, to be trusted in this small way despite everything, her back turned to him and her nearly asleep. Something begins unfurling inside him, a small sun rising over a long cold horizon.

Eventually she begins moving, almost imperceptibly at first, in his arms. She nuzzles closer against him so that her back is pressed along the length of his front. She arches her lower back so that she pushes herself into his groin. 

His half hardened cock stiffens all the way and she makes a noise of what sounds like satisfaction in her throat. He pulls her tighter against him.

Despite all this, her body is still heavy and slow with exhaustion and so he's surprised - _will she ever stop surprising him? _\- when she says softly, "Ben, I want...I want more... I want you, but I'm so tired. I don't want to make you do all the work."__

____

____

He laughs. The sudden peal of it is out of character for him, but it happens without forethought. 

"Rey, of all the things you need to worry about... I am at your service. I will do whatever you want."

He can feel her smiling when she says simply, "Good," before shuffling so that she can reach behind her to undo the tie on his sleeping pants. He takes the hint, and quickly sheds them. 

He has to take a moment just to process the feeling of their bare legs entwining, of his cock against her flesh with only the thin material of her shift separating them.

He moves his hand down to the edge of it, running his hand over her firm thigh and peeling back the cloth to reveal more of her skin. He cups her ass in his hand, ripe as a perea-fruit, and then glides his hand up to her hip, using it to leverage her against him.

She sighs contentedly and pushes back. It is just the slightest motion, but it makes a huge impact on him. His breath is coming short.

These small movements she's making, along with the surrendered weight of her exhaustion, is making it painful not to just sheathe himself in her immediately, fuck her deeply and thoroughly while she seems so open and willing.

Instead, he takes a ragged breath and slides his hand down between her legs to test her readiness, groaning when he finds her slick. His fingers slip easily into her and the little gasp she makes when they enter her is delicious and maddening. He slides his fingertips up through her folds and brushes them over her clit, circling and caressing it gently.

His other arm is pinned beneath her neck and he curls it around so that he can cup one of her breasts. He feels the nipple tighten into a hard bud against his palm.

She gasps, tightening her thighs around his fingers so that his hand is trapped between them. He continues to tease the swollen nub of her, savouring the little mewling sounds of pleasure she makes.

" _More _," she demands. He moves to obey her, but hesitates, remembering the first time, her worry. He doesn't know if he can get her pregnant through a Force bond, but it's not worth the risk seeing how well everything else translates through the bridge between them. "Is it safe? Last time...was it safe?"__

____

____

"Yes," she whispers. "We have a med-droid now. Please...fuck me Ben."

It is all the invitation he needs. He pulls her hip back, lifting one of her thighs and shifting down so that the head of his cock nudges against her opening. She draws in a deep breath and he pushes forward.

The slow press into the drenching heat of her is enough to destroy and remake him into something entirely new. He has to use all of his discipline to master his response, to make it last. 

She doesn't tense but she moans, a small sharp noise that makes him grit his teeth and still inside her. "Am I hurting you?" 

"No," she breathes. "Good. It's good."

He reaches up to smooth her hair back and kisses the back of her ear, nudging it with his nose and sending a breath into the shell of it before swiping it with his tongue. "Good," he says back to her, his voice gravelly. 

She shivers and he starts to move, slowly at first, pulling out until the head of his cock nestles against her lips and then pushing back into the molten grasp of her.

She says his name again, and the sound of it infused with her pleasure is a benediction. He picks up speed, spreading his hand over her lower belly to pull her against him as he pumps his hips, each thrust into the velvet glide of her body an explosion of sensation, a star being born, perfect and burning and completely beyond anything he's experienced before her.

Her body yields completely to his, which is still curved around her, spine bowed as he rocks her against him. He wants to protect her like this, encase her in the hull of his body, tear apart anyone who might harm her with his mind...even though it was once him who could have harmed her, even though he knows she doesn't need him to, even though she is more powerful than he is in many ways.

Being with her shakes him to his foundations, but this is gentler than the times before. There is her exhaustion, which makes her response more subdued if not just as eager. And the urgency of last time is missing. 

The first time they were physically together and could connect mind to mind, which was a scorching, overwhelming thing. It's different through the bond. The touch feels real but he can't feel her mind. He supposes he must already be _in _her mind for this to be happening, and her in his.__

____

____

It allows him to take his time, drawing out the pleasure of it. If the bond closes before they are done, then so be it. 

When the pitch of the sounds she is making becomes more fevered, her spine arched to allow him deeper access, he slides his hand down again to her clit. Laying his fingertips flat against it he applies pressure down and around in a circular motion, coaxing her closer while moving inside her. He holds her tight while she comes, her body flexing softly and crying out with its release. 

He feels her inner walls spasming around him, squeezing his cock, and it sends him reeling into a fiery bliss, helpless noises tearing from him as he slams into her a few last times and splinters into something far bigger than his own skin. He is as wide as the galaxy as he spills himself inside her.

The sensation ebbs, and eventually he softens and slips from her. Even then, neither of them moves. 

As he returns to himself, the burden of his past comes back to him like a weight resettling in his belly. But there is also something else - a kind of warm contentment spreading through him. Despite all he's done, in this moment he feels almost comfortable on the inside of himself. 

It's nothing he's felt before, at least not in as long as he can remember. _Is this what other people feel like _, he wonders? Perhaps this is what allows people to be good, like Rey is good, like his mother is good. Perhaps this is what life can feel like, free of conflict and self-loathing.__

____

____

Not just the afterglow of sex obviously - that wears off and even people like Rey and Leia experience great sorrow - but the inhabiting of oneself with something akin to ease, despite pain.

Rey wriggles closer to him and he presses his face into her hair. He loves it loose like this but also loves that it isn't always so. It makes it more special when it is, and he imagines that few people see it this way. 

"The bond lasted longer this time," he observes, bending to kiss behind her ear.

"Mmmmm, and it keeps connecting us when we have fewer and fewer clothes on," she mumbles, smiling. "Wise, wise Force."

He laughs. Moments later she is already partway back to her formally slumbering state, growing heavy against him. 

He knows he has a long way to go to truly earn her trust, but this, her trusting him with her body at least...it fills him with gratitude. To go from enemies to her feeling safe enough to let down her defences and sleep in his arms...he couldn't entirely be a monster if she had seen so much of his mind and yet could entrust herself to him like this.

He kisses her again and tucks her in against his chest. For a long time he listens to the flow of her breath as it softens into sleep. Eventually it lulls him into his own sleep, dreamless and deep.

When he wakes again, she is gone, but he can still smell her on his blankets.

*****

 

In the days that follow, he continues to send the Resistance information: secrets, weaknesses, plans. He is arming them for the future while internally he seeds discord, confusion, dissent. Seeds of downfall.

He finds that it is an excellent use of his strengths - this is something he is good at. It helps that he is doing it for her. He finally has a motivation that is pure and without conflict. 

It helps even more that he is also doing it for himself. He finds he enjoys destroying this thing he once wanted so badly to be a part of. With Snoke gone, his mind has cleared like water that was once stirred up, all the muck settling to the bottom where it belongs. He didn't truly realize how malignant Snoke's presence was until he was cured of it. 

He understands why the first time they were together she insisted that she couldn't save him, but in a way she did, by letting him save her. He never would have had the strength to turn on Snoke had it not been to spare her life.

And then later in his chambers, as the influence of his dead mentor left him and his mind unclouded, she had asked him about his past. At first it had been terrible, explaining how he'd turned to the Dark Side, exposing himself even further to her. But eventually it had been as though he were telling his own story to himself for the first time. He could see it spread out before him, this path that he had once thought inevitable.

But here was this new expanse of the possible, revealed by a woman who had seen one of his most monstrous acts and without pretending that he was anything other than what he was could also see something else in him too. Even better, a woman who wouldn't take any of his shit, didn't hesitate to call him on it, could probably even kick his ass if she wanted. Although to be fair, that one time that she had he had been badly wounded. They'd have to spar sometime to really find out. He smiles to himself.

He still feels his connection to his grandfather strongly, but perhaps he is more like Anakin than Darth Vader after all. Flawed, angry, but also capable of love and able to recognize his mistakes in the end. This fits better somehow, and that old feeling that he was always failing and falling short begins to lessen its grip on him, just a little. 

So now, Snoke was gone and he wasn't free exactly, but there were choices to be made again. He doesn't think of it as finding the Light, nor as redemption. His history cannot be erased. But here, in the present, he's found a new sense of purpose and he doesn't question it. He tries not to think too far ahead. 

Only until the next time he can see her. 

 

*****

 

Time passes. She is nowhere to be found and yet everywhere he looks; she haunts him through his days. At night he tosses in his bed, sleepless, imagining her there with him.

His longing for her is a torment, but he wouldn't wish it away if he could. And so he schemes against the First Order and he waits.

Days pass, a fortnight. Her absence becomes a constant throbbing, an amputated limb. 

He is in his quarters, sitting in the armchair where she first climbed onto his lap and it all began. _Where was she now? ___

____

____

__He still communicates with the Resistance but he doesn't dare send a message to her directly or ask where they are. He doesn't think it is safe for him to know while he remains with the First Order. He also doesn't think they would tell him...unless maybe it was so he could surrender himself._ _

____

____

It has never been this long between their Force-connections before. Perhaps the Force was through connecting them. 

Perhaps whatever purpose the bond was meant to serve was completed. It certainly had changed everything for him, had opened up a doorway out of his isolation and pain, long after he had thought that it was too late.

_But if so, what now? _Was he to turn himself into the Resistance? The idea of surrendering his freedom in this way was nearly impossible to consider. He didn't think he would do well in captivity.__

____

____

How would they even hold someone like him captive unless he consented? Could he agree to such a thing, resign himself to paying for his crimes?

Perhaps, as he'd hoped all along, his work against the First Order would grant him some leniency. It was his best chance of seeing Rey again in the flesh, which he very much wanted.

But could he face his mother in order to do that? He sighs.

All he knows is that he can't stay much longer here, pretending to be the Supreme Leader while plotting the First Order's destruction. Suspicions were growing and his power was slipping. Soon it would be dangerous to remain.

Despite his fears for the future, part of him also knows that whether the Force connected them again or not, his fate is still entwined with Rey's. Their story was just beginning. 

She was his balance, as he was hers. Snoke was right about that, despite all his other lies.

It reminded him of something he'd seen when visiting a planet in his childhood. He'd been left to wander about as his mother attended a summit. The city had been filled with food and music and dancing. Coloured ribbons hung from the trees, people placed small paper boats filled with flowers in a nearby river, bonfires were lit at dusk.

When he asked about the festivities someone explained that it was the Equinox, the day when the hours of light and dark were of equal length, a turning point in the seasons. It was something that happened, he learned, on many planets with only one sun. 

He and Rey together, they were an equinox.

He stares at the hologram on his wall. He has changed it recently. It now depicts the warm desert hues of Jakku, to remind him of his scavenger. 

She survived all those years alone in that place. The thought of it makes him swell with a mixture of admiration for her and awe that she wanted him in the ways she did. It gives him a new strength and clarity.

Whatever was coming for him, he could survive that too. _They _would survive it.__

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcomed and appreciated.


End file.
